It is not the case in practice that there exists no incentive to disrupt the
market for transaction confirmation. Statism is profitable, and a primary
source of revenue is seigniorage. Given Bitcoin's threat to that privilege, its
destruction presents a hefty incentive.
The security model of Bi
mining the
anti-cartel chain in return for fees and valuable block rewards.
Regards,
ZmnSCPxj
Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email.
> Original Message
> Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Centralizing mining by force
> Local Time: November 7, 2017 11:55 AM
&
What you describe is an example of a majority attack ("51% attack"). No
technical mechanism in Bitcoin prevents this. However in practice, miners
are not incentivized to perform this attack as it would destroy confidence
in Bitcoin, and would ultimately impact their revenues.
-Marc
On Mon, Nov 6,
Forgive me if this has been asked elsewhere before, but I am trying to
understand a potential failure mode of Bitcoin mining.
A majority of miners can decide which valid blocks extend the chain. But
what would happen if a majority of miners, in the form of a cartel decided
to validly orphan any bl
